torsdag, oktober 07, 2010

O God of justice and mercy, we pray that no more daughters and sons in this world die as the result of bullying simply because of who they are; be it race, religion, sexual orientation, or social awkwardness. Lord, in your mercy,hear our prayer.

That our schools become places of nurturing and hope rather than shame and derision. Lord, in your mercy,hear our prayer.

That our teachers instill values of charity and acceptance in all children so there is no need for one child to feel superior over another. Lord, in your mercy,hear our prayer.

That parents can put aside what they were sometimes taught, in order to promote tolerance and diversity at home. Lord, in your mercy,hear our prayer.

That our communities support children who feel “different from the others” and show them lives that are theirs to claim, lives they cannot begin to imagine to see at home. Lord, in your mercy,hear our prayer.

That all children can grow up feeling self-empowered and truly loved simply as themselves, and not suffer beatings and psychological abuse at home or school. Lord, in your mercy,hear our prayer.

O Lord, you understand this above all others, for your only Son hung among thieves on a rough wooden cross on a barren hill, just as Matthew Shepard hung from a rail fence on a lonely road. Be our light in the darkness, Lord; protect our children and fill them with the love of your Holy Spirit; hold them in your Son’s loving arms in their most fearful hours, and be with them always.Amen.

From Counterlight:I've noticed that the latest spate of young gay suicides have really struck a nerve with LGBTs. I think the reason is clear, we've all been through this. Michael went through it. I went through it. In mid 1970s Texas, I was a very lonely and suicidal gay teen. Michael was badly bullied in mid 1980s Long Island. We all go through this, and most of us survive, but some of us don't. Each loss is irreplaceable, a life that might have been and now never will be. Each loss is another victory for the haters who would love to see us removed in one way or another from the face of the earth.

On the one hand, there really has been a lot of progress, I would never have dreamed of seeing an openly gay and an openly lesbian Episcopal bishop with the support of their church thirty years ago.On the other hand, in some fundamental ways, we are still stuck right where we were on that steamy night in June of 1969 when the riots started at the Stonewall Inn. This was demonstrated forcefully in a discussion of the legacy of Stonewall staged by Brian Lehrer and the local Public Radio station, WNYC between some Stonewall veterans and a group of LGBT youth. What was so striking was not the differences, but the similarities in the experiences of the veterans and the kids. Really little had changed in how hard it was to come of age as gay between then and now.The historian David Carter, who wrote what will probably stand as the definitive account of the Stonewall riots, pointed out that gays and lesbians still enjoy no legal protection on the federal level. There are no federal laws forbidding discrimination against LGBTs in housing or employment. What legal protections LGBTs have are a hodge podge of state and local laws that vary considerably from place to place. Cities and states frequently have conflicting anti-discriminatory laws (like between New York City and New York State). Some cities are legally gay friendly in the middle of gay hostile states (Austin). There are numerous states and communities that openly desire to re-criminalize the status of LGBTs despite the Supreme Court and Texas vs. Lawrence.

Homophobia remains the last socially acceptable bigotry. The idea that being gay is the worst possible thing in the world for men is still a staple of very machismo oriented contemporary youth culture and the industries that profit from it. Our culture is soaking in it. It is inescapable. It has gotten particularly nasty since it is now openly challenged and called to account. Churches are leading villains in this struggle. Pulpits create that sense of spiritual permission for the haters by singling out gays and lesbians as either creatures from hell, or as God's mistakes. Indeed, what comes from the pulpits is basically an apologia for extermination, either in the extreme and literal form advocated by the likes of Fred Phelps, or more commonly through "reparative therapy," the idea that gays can be "changed."

These suicides are a brutal reminder that our struggles are far from over, both our political and our personal struggles. There is no Glinda the Good Witch to help us out. We aren't wearing any ruby slippers. The Emerald City isn't any friendlier to us than Kansas was. The Wicked Witches are legion, and they really do want to kill us all.But, they really will melt with a bucket of cold water thrown on them. It is our courage, our hearts, our brains, and above all our friendship and solidarity that will get us all down the yellow brick road together.

ADDENDUM:

There were 2 bashings here in New York in what are supposed to be safe neighborhoods for gays. One of them was right in the Stonewall Bar. Apparently 2 palookas from Staten Island had no idea what kind of bar they walked into, yelled homophobic curses, and then tried to rob and beat one of the patrons.

As usual Joe.My.God had all the dirt and details.

And speaking of apologias for extermination coming from the pulpit, Dan Savage, as usual, minces no words:

My good Christian friends, I think he is spot on about this. I think our proper response should not be to complain about Dan Savage painting all Christians with the right wing brush. There's a much bigger and more desperate issue involved than the reputation of our faith . Our Lord can take care of Himself, with or without our help. The Christian Faith will survive even those who ask "What Would Jesus Do?" while dragging that very faith through the mud of bigotry. Those who do need our help (as well as Our Lord's) most desperately are those very people who Dan Savage rightly describes as seeing nothing but despair in their futures. It is our responsibility as Christians to those kids, to the rest of the world, and to ourselves to dispel all the obsolete and bad science used in bad faith to demonize and pathologize sexual minorities, to dispel the really toxic heresies that proclaim parts of God's Creation to be exceptions to His declaration that His Creation (ALL of it) is Good, and to dispel the monomaniacal and downright psychotic obsession of Christian leaders and institutions with matters of sex and control. It is up to us to present to the world an alternative vision of church as a community grounded in love of God through love for each other and the world instead of as spiritual buttress for the prevailing hierarchy and spiritual enforcer of social convention.

Perhaps it's time to think about replacing the image of Christ the King (kingship is obsolete, even as a metaphor) with Christ the Liberator. Deus Optimus Maximus et Christus Liberator.

onsdag, augusti 11, 2010

No, the story of Sodom and Gomorra (the names allude to the destruction of the site through an earthquake) is not about rape, That is a thoroughly late Modern invention.

The only (suggested, heterosexual) rape in the story never comes off!

The rape angle comes after D.S. Bailey's book Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition in 1955, that is it enters late Mo-dern "translations" in the 10 following years. The 1962 revision of the 1569/1602 Spanish Reina-Valera hasn't got it, but the highly politicized French 1957 Bible de Jérusalem and all later "trans-lations" have it...

What is being intentionally mis-translated is the word ina sunge-nåmetha autois; that we may know them, in Genesis 19:4. The claim (Renaissance) is that the root gnå- means sex. It doesn't. It means to know...

The root gnå- occurs some 943 times in the Bible (1 in the NT) but in only 8 cases can it refer to Hetero-sex. Genesis 4:1 And the man (=Adam) knew his wife, is one example.

Sungenåmetha is a different word altogether.

Mind you, the 8 cases are all Imperfect aorist!!!

Also, as it is Loot himself, the Husbander; the Pater familias, who suggests the rape of his daughters, it really isn't.

Antiquity, as well as pre Modern Societies, didn't count this as rape at all!!! See the various (and varying) stories of Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12:11ff, 20:2 - 18, and Isaak and Rebekka in Genesis 26:7...

tisdag, augusti 10, 2010

Once again Chris, I remind you that you are talking of transla-tions. And yes, almost all are without any merit whatsoever.

Remember also the Mazorets. To them, and later generations, the Holy Scriptures in the plural must be copied meticulously to avoid any further errors. Not even the most blatant and obvious faults may be corrected!

The in-sufficiency and dis-harmony of scripture rules.

Today I have completed work on the sexualization of II Commandment porneía and VII Commandment moixeía in the Swedish tradition from the Parisian Versio vulgata of ca 1200.

It comes in 5 columns: Greek text, Versio vulgata, Swedish 1526, 1917 and 1981/2000. Quotes would be no use, but I can give you the statistics ;=)

In the NT there are 45 porneía in the Greek against 47 “unchas-tity” in the translations…

The extras are Romans 13:13 Koítais; Beds (I suggest you look that one up!), and 2 Peter 2:14 moixalídos; "their (masc.) eyes are full of disloyalty".

5 of the 33 II Commandment moixeía refer to the customer into sacral prostitution, to which comes the 12 pornä; the poor unfortunate women sold to the Temple for this kind of Idolatry (still around in India). Of these 12 pornä, 9 are 2nd century (5 in Rev).

The Versio vulgata (I have used the 1895 online, for simplicity’s sake) renders most porneía as fornicatio (a loanword from the same root: por/per), but 2 as prostitutione/is.

Moreover, it has an addedfornicatione (in Romans 1:29).

To which comes 1 porneía rendered as homicidae (Rev 22:15), which gives the ideology away: to 1st Millennium Hellenists little boys will end up in Limbus infantorum whenever Sperm (concei-ved of as seeds ;=) is wasted for non procreative purposes = MURDER! (to the straight edge Gnosticists procreation meant bringing an Angel down forcibly from Bliss near The Highest Being cloaking it in the DUST of the Vale of Tears...).

The Swedish 1526 has 10 ”hor-” (including 5 additional) which formally are from the root per-/por-/forn-/hor. Against this comes 31 bolerij, which is the sexualized Scholastic understan-ding of the Parisian Versio vulgata.

To this come 4 skörheet/skörachtigheet/skörleffnat; madness, and 1 ”icke oäkta födde”; ”not born in bastardy” for the persons in John 8:41 who were not conceived in Cultic prostitution.

4 of the 47 Bible 2000 translations are (accidentally) from the actual root: per-/por-/forn-/hor; horat/horkarl, but still wrong ;=)

Conclusion: the proportions have been inverted.

The 10 porneías (all 2nd century) referring (in some sense) to the VII Commandment and translated as “unchastity” (in some sense), are correct.

But out of the 33 porneía referring to II Commandment Idolatry, not a single translation is correct (all are rendered as “unchasti-ty”), and only 4 are even based on the root per-/por-/forn-/hor (which never referred to Idolatry in Swedish).

And remember, that the Textus receptus (which has its merits being of the General Text) was much manipulated in the early 16th century. Erasmus and the others excised most of the late Byzantineadditions, substituting them with the Scholastic additions from the Versio vulgata.

(which, BTW, means that they were fully aware of what they were doing ;=)

“So far we have had the right and sure main books of the New Testament. But these four that here follow have had a different reputation in antiquity…” ;=)

Chris wrote: "... to undo most the Reformation and flies in the face of God tearing the Temple veil and opening the Gospel to the gentiles."

The other way around, surely? (but don't blame it on me)

Chris wrote: "Please feel free to do so, but please be honest and not use the Scripture for any case you try to make, as your trans-lation is worthless..."

I do my own translations, thank you.

But regarding worthless translations, let’s mention the NIV and all the other "Dynamic Equivalence" ones...

(before DE, there was no "gay" question in the churches – NO one put "homosexual" in a translation, isn't that reason to pause?)

NP wrote: "Yep...that is how we got Lambeth 1.10 – but you don't care about the view of "whole church" when it conflicts with what you want, do you, Erika?"

Intentionally corrupted DE translations and misdirected Bibli-cism ia chaotic meeting lead to Lambeth 1998 I:10 (remember there are 14 more non-binding "resolutions" from Lambeth 1998 ;=)

So no, He does not "protect His Word".

Only the other day (Epistle on 8th after Holy Trinity) I found that the words en Sarkí have been excised from the Last Swedish State translation (made by 2 converts to Rome) in 1 John 4:1-6, making an anti-Doketic statement Doketic.

(There are a few of these in the Johannine writs, as you know;=)

"Thus you can see which Spirit is from God; each Spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come "in human likeness" is from God, but the spirit which denies Jesus is not from God. It's the Spirit of Anti-Christ..."

The Docetist "in human likeness" should read en Sarkí; in the Flesh.

Now, Flesh is a Biblical concept, central to the Biblical understanding of Creation and so on.

So far I have found 38 different Pseudonyms for it in the 1981/2000...

The most amusing psudonyme for Flesh being "that way" ;=)

As the 1981/2000 is Dynamic Equivalent there is no concordance; one has to go through every verse...

I quite understand if you do not care much for the victims of hate crimes (or accept the category), but you must be able to see that this is a Soteriological and Theological point of no small consequence.

måndag, augusti 09, 2010

To start from the end… The elder the translation, the more reliable, in my experience. The Swedish 1526/1541 is infinitely better than any of the 20th century ones (and much closer to Greek language-wise).

Modern translations are often worthless, especially when into “Dynamic Equivalence” (a sobering is on the way, as in the 2001 English Standard Version turning back to the traditional post scholastic errors/sexualizations – which, contrary to DE ones, are systematic and thus easy to spot ;=)

Generally speaking, only ideologically un-interesting passages are still correctly translated, often carried on from the 2nd century North African, very reliable, Old Latin translation.

That’s one for continuity!

However, count on everything socio-politically prostitutable to have been changed – often several times over.

The 4 gospels were all added to early on. In reading they must be kept apart from one another. At Lund we were told, both at the Theological Institution and at Seminary, never to mix Marcan with Johannine theology, and so on.

Mark, written for Rome, is the more original story gospel (the first stage being collections of words gospels such as the late 2nd century in part Gnosticist Gospel of Thomas), arguing against earlier merely wonder-maker versions. I would date this to the 40ies, even.

Follows Antiochene Dr Luke much into Herstory (Lukas might have been a lady ;=)

John of Efesos is Theology more than anything – slightly Gnostic (but not yet Gnosticist). Great for meditation, but not much so for reading out loud.

Matt, to my mind is unequivocally Alexandrian, 120-140ies. That is, after the 130 2nd Jewish War break with (outlawed) Judaism.

Matt not seldom follows the published letters of Paul against Mark and Luke giving Idolatry as permissible cause for divorce – inverting Paul in 1 Cor 7:12-17, who argues against the compulsory religious/ethnic divorce of Ezraism, see Ezra 10).

But then, the letters of Paul were only published c:a 100 ;=)

The earliest text-witnesses (often translations) such as the Greek/Latin Codex Bezae (a 440ies copy of a 170-180 original, perhaps by Ireneos himself) representing the first half of the 2nd century, already show changes (both textual, as for instance, the “and he said, saying” indicating quotes from Jesus, and accommodations to the surrounding World, as in the relegating of women back to Kinder und Küche).

Given all this (remember, dearest Erica; that we are not yet free from Integrism!) I still confidently say that the Holy Scriptures (always in the plural) of the Church, laboriously collected over centuries, contain all things necessary for Salvation but also things that may be detrimental, if mistaken for the real thing.

I also say with Paul (1 Cor 4.6), Dr Hooker and the Swedish 1593 Confessio fidei, that nothing beyond what is written is to be required of anybody – which, however, to my mind (I have no other) is precisely what is being done today, by anti Moderns posing as the guardians of Faith (Christian) and Morals (Gnosticist ravings on the Spilling of Semen and the Neo Platonist State Absolutist fiction that Oppression is necessary for Stabilitas).

The answer to the accusation that the traditions of men are un-reliable is, of course, that there has been, since very early on, a death penalty for forgery, but no corresponding one for a week memory…

In fact, traditions are reliable. Documents are not.

Collections many times the biblical format have survived more or less unscathed for quite as long. On the other hand, for whoever wants to, documents are easy to change; which is why the Mazorets didn’t want to “correct” even “obvious” errors and omissions.

It’s only the Way of the World…

Indeed what is fascinating about these conversations is that the Gospel has been heard, despite all the Efforts of the World!

From Carolingian times Academia and State have been preaching Hierarchy, Subordination, Exclusion, Hate, Crusades, 6 Phantom categories, Burnings, Hell and Damnation…

The Social discipline of Empire.

And yet, people have heard Equality, Emancipation, Inclusion, Love, and Mutuality.

The Gospel of God’s Righteousness in Christ Jesus.

Which is what God whispers softly when you read the Good Book talking to your heart.

What I can contribute as someone with a degree, are bits of learning and some scattered insights that come to me because of my peculiar place in time and space. Individual circumstances and a certain goût de la véritée allow me to indicate some directions where to dig for hidden truth.

Despite all the efforts of Empire, the Gospel still belongs to all of us through the Church and through the Good Book – even when “modified” to suit the latest fashions ;=)

Gods tender Mercy knows no bounds,his Truth shall never decay…

From a conversation on Thinking Anglicans three years ago. And thank's to Erika who tipped me off.

Hebrews should be read as the great and isolated Alexandrian letter that it is.

Remember that the various collections of scriptures that were brought together over 1000 years to form the different post Renaissance NTs, came from different parts of the Church, expressing the varying and sometimes competing theologies of competing Patriarchates/Nations.

The 4 gospels of the one Gospel are not "synoptic"; they tell much the same events in much the same order (with illuminating exceptions) but have different views, not the same - as do the Letters.

To Paul Christ is the Hilasterion in the Holiest of Holy, to Hebrews Christ is the High Priest sprinkling it ;=)

Ephesians and Colossians are the same scripture (again a treatise, not a letter) with different views/evaluations. Put them side by side and compare. What Ephesians (maybe Bishop Onésimos of Efesos) calls “rubbish”, the other (maybe Marcion) gets upset about.

The Johannine Apokalypsis was not accepted in an Alexandria (which was suspicious of the Johannine letters as well) which had its own apokalypsis; the 1000-page Hermas' Shepherd, along with Barnabas’ anti Jewish letter (again not a letter but a treatise), and so on…

The late 2nd/early 3rd century Alexandrian redaction (Clement of Alexandria; the p 46 & c.) re-worked, corrected and harmo-nized by the 5th century Byzantine redaction, did not acknowled-ge the Pastorals, too close in time to be taken as authentic (and – according to the “Muratoria” list – written as one redacted anti-Marcionite letter, in the order Titus, 1 Tim, 2 Tim), but tried to promote it’s own Alexandrian scriptures instead ;=)

Likewise, the "Catholic" letters (= general letters lacking addresses) of Alexandria were not accepted in neighbouring Antioch for several centuries...

Modern (and antique) Integrism is wrong.

The view of the Early Church (see Eusebios’ Church History) was that any scripture could witness to the Righteousness of God in Christ; any scripture could contain grains of Truth.

Nothing was dangerous; (almost) nothing was magic.

The view of “scripture” of the Early Church was neither "high" or low, but w i d e.

The Church collected its Holy Scriptures because they gave witness to her Faith in different Patriarchates, at different moments in time.

Precisely because they were different!

We do not have 4 gospels of the one Gospel to say the same thing. They don’t. The Bible is Jewish scriptures, not Indo European ones...

Leaving the Pastorals apart (which as early as the mid 2nd century present the absolute opposite to Paul's teachings on Society, Church and State, women, slaves, Olympics, military service & c, as his own) the "problem" you refer to divides into two:

1. Integrism, or simply put the lumping together of various scriptural utterances to form new hitherto un-heard of "teach-ings", legitimizing ancient heathen Philosophy and Gnosticism and/or latter day social and ecclesiastical Politics,

2. Forged translations, from the late 12th century Parisian Versio vulgata onwards, putting these latter day State and Academy novelties into the sacred texts themselves (in our time leading to the re-circulation and re-processing of earlier, dated, forgeries to express late modern, socio-political "needs").

So I am warning against reading the Holy Scriptures in the plural un-wittingly as the Holy Scripture in the singular of Hellenism.

My point is not what the NPs of this world say, that the Bible, or the Church , or Creation, or Christ or God should be painted in the light of a late modern socio-political agenda, but that this forging lies in the past; 9th century, 12th century, 16th century, second half of the 20th century ("Dynamic Equivalence"), and that it is our duty to fight it and bring the Holy Scriptures of the Church back to Christ's Gospel after 1000 years of servitude to the Powers that be.

I don’t really think changing Idolatry into “sex”, or Disloyalty into “marriage breaking”, or Greed into “unchastity” is merely adding layers.

It’s a different Gospel.

“Dynamic equivalence” is a Lie. Not even an “and” is unambi-guous, it may mean a host of things. As basically a historian, I have is no use of a text if I don’t know both what the words may mean and what they cannot mean.

Both are equally important.

Distorting it in our image, or giving it the meaning of a 3rd or 4th language, only proves that we actually do not care what the Bible says!

All claims to the contrary are so many Freudian slips ;=)

Erika wrote: “I suppose the real question is whether we believe that, despite their limitations, they nevertheless form part of continued, Spirit guided revelation, or whether all additions and forgeries are inherently uninspired and must be disregarded as false innovations.”

I don’t know if “inspired” is very helpful here. Of course they are “inspired”… by something ;=)

Per the Early Church, all scriptures, no matter how much they might be “holy scripture” to whomever, may contain logoi spermatikoì; seeds of Truth, and as such form part of an ongoing Spirit-guided revelation. This is part of the background to the important discussion about historical typoi; OT pre-views and fulfilments.

Christ, the Word in Creation, is present in Creation from day one, before the Incarnation.

Personally, I find parts of what I believe to be by Marcion (for instance Romans 1:18-25 or 8:38-39 and Colossians) to be some of the most beautiful and most inspired (because unprecedented), and therefore inspiring words in the NT. But I don’t think the concept of “God’s Wrath” (I think it must have been God's Grace originally) towards Creation is at all useful, or even compatible with the view that the same God created his Creation very good and sent his only begotten to save it, to bring it back to Him.

fredag, augusti 06, 2010

Homosexuals were with us in Auschwitz and were persecuted along with Jews throughout Western societies for the past several thousand years, so we stand with them in the struggle for full acceptance and full legal equality, including marriage equality, in the 21st century. But even had they not shared our fate, the denial of rights and the double standards used to justify such denials are always a threat to Jews as well as to everyone else on the planet!

The rights of homosexuals are supported by an overwhelming majority of the American Jewish community. That support is not only based on a memory of shared victimhood, but also on the core values of our own Jewish tradition. The Torah's command to 'love our neighbor' and 'love the Other (stranger, in Hebrew: ger)' are intrinsic to how most American Jews understand our Jewish obligations today. The current (July/August) issue of Tikkun Magazine has as its major focus "Queer Spirituality & Politics" with a powerful essay by Jay Michaelson on "Why Gay Rights is A Religious Issue" plus other essays by Starhawk, Jay Bakker, yvette A. Flunder, Emi Kyami, Joy Ladin, Parvez Sharma, Andrea Smith, Dean Space, Ruth Vanita and other glbtq writers and thinkers. In fact, Tikkun was the first place to publish an essay by a (then) closeted homosexual rabbi discussing his struggle, and we have severely criticized those parts of the Jewish religious world which still do not sanctify gay marriages. As a rabbi, I've had the honor to conduct many such marriages in the S.F. Bay Area, as have many of my colleagues around the country in the Jewish Renewal movement, in the Reform movement, and in the Reconstructionist movement.

The claim by some fundamentalists that gay love is forbidden by the Bible is itself an interpretation and a selective reading of Biblical text. Few of those fundamentalists demand that their society take literally the command to forgive all loans every seventh year (the Sabbatical Year) or to redistribute the land every fiftieth year (the Jubilee) or to not light a fire in their homes on the Sabbath, or for that matter, the command to not destroy the trees of your enemy when engaged in warfare, but they selectively choose this command for special attention.

As to the literalists, well, then be literal: the command says 'Thou shalt not lie with a man the way thou liest with a woman." Ok, fine, but that doesn't say thou shalt not lie with a man, but only that one must do so in a different way than one lies with a woman. The contrast is clear in Leviticus, because all of the other commands about sexual behavior in the same section are unconditional 'thou shalt not lie with x or y or z' but only here is the command extended in that way to qualify how it should be applied. While this interpretation is not the only one possible, it demonstrates why Jews have been involved in transforming the meanings of Biblical texts in accord with our own evolving understanding and evolving ethical sensibilities. So, for example, the rabbis of the Talmud, when faced with the Biblical injunction to stone to death a rebellious son, were so uncomfortable with the morality of that command that they proclaimed, shamelessly transforming the literal meaning of the text, that 'a rebelious son never existed and was never created', i.e. that whatever the Torah was referencing was fine, but it was in fact not to be confused with what we mean in our daily life experience by a rebellious child. The point is that Judaism has always found a way through creative re-interpretation of texts to hear God's voice afresh in every generation and to recognize that re-hearing as "the oral Torah given on Mt. Sinai and passed on from generation to generation." I detail this perspective in my 1994 national best-seller Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation (Putnam hardback; HarperCollins,paperback 1995).

So if it's not about Biblical constraints, what is it about? Fear or hatred of gays is one level of understanding, and certainly correct. Yet for many male homophobes there is another level: the fear that homosexuals remind them of a part of them that was repressed as they adopted their male identity in their early years (5-15): the part that loved and identified with their own mother and hence with the desire to embody and be nourished by that love-oriented and generosity-oriented part that became sex-stereotyped as "female." Because this "femaie element" had to be rejected by young boys in order to be accepted as "a real man" there was an intense need to repress that part of them which identified with their mother and with the loving element she represented. The harder it was to give that up, the more intense the repression that young boys have had to incorporate into their being in order to fit in to the emerging male identities which they are offered by the other kids at school and by the media and the ethos of a patriarchal culture.

This is not the same as saying, as is commonly asserted, that they were all "really" homosexuals to start with. I don't believe that there is an essentialist sexual identity in that way. Rather, I'm claiming that boys have constructed their sexual identity by having to repress their most loving parts, and the more vulnerable they are to the pain of that abandonment of part of themselves and their mothers that they really loved, the more they have been forced to become super-macho, one of whose dimensions is to repress anything that resembles a "girlie" part (remember how Gov. Schwarznegger accused Democrats in 2004 of being "girlie men" and how the Dems were unable to respond in the way they should have, by affirming that it is a complment to be compared to a girl, and that those who don't understand that are deeply troubled human beings).

Since homosexual males are equated by the homophobes as girlish and weak, those afflicted by the need to repress that part of their identity, usually starting at a very young age, are most fearful of homosexuality and then of homosexuals.

Please note that this analysis avoids putting down the homophobes--I see them as themselves victims of patriarchal society, and people who need psychological and spiritual help, not people to be ridiculed, though I and Tikkun have been consistently committed to fighting the policies that they would impose on the rest of us. One must be compassionate and forgiving toward others with whom we disagree on ethical issues, but forgiveness does not require us to stop struggling against the policies and institutions that wounded people have created to dominate our lives, and against their oppressive beliefs and behaviors.

Tikkun magazine also recognizes that the decision to overturn the ban on gay marriage is a victory for all of us who support separation of religion and state, since those who seek to impose that restriction are simply trying to impose their particular religious beliefs on the society as a whole. Avoiding that was a major reason for the First Amendment to the Constitution. So we hail the decision by Judge Vaughn Walker and hope that it will be sustained in the appeal process through the federal courts, though we share the concern of many that this most reactionary Supreme Court in 70 years may end up siding with the homophobes and haters.

Please feel free to reprint this and send it to everyone you know. And also please help Tikkun by making a tax-deductible contribution at www.tikkun.org or by joining our INTERFAITH educational and outreach arm, The Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org. Do it now, please!

And if you happen to be in the Bay Area during the Jewish High Holidays, please consider registering to come to our religious services for Rosh Hashanah and/or Yom Kippur (others have come from around the country in past years just to attend these services). The services will be held at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Ca. Information on dates, costs, and registration at www.BEYTTIKKUN.org. Or call Mike Godbe at 510 528 6250. I think you will find our services a unique spiritual experience.

fredag, juli 16, 2010

Having seen the lives of so many ordinary, good people ruined by it, I have come to the conclusion that, after rape, the most harm you can do to another person is to make them redundant. If the churches of the world really want to do some something to strengthen the institution of marriage they should preach against this casual evil, now endemic throughout the world, as it screws up relationships and takes children away from parents more effectively than anything else other than, maybe, sexual unfaithfulness. Yet, although the churches, without any proof to back their claims, are prepared to condemn same sex love as being the cause of the weakening of heterosexual marriage, you rarely hear a preacher condemning the discarding of human livelihood, worth, health and happiness by the hatchet men of capitalism. This failure to condemn is rendered even more evil and downright blasphemous by the fact that the prophets and the lawmakers of the Old Testament made it patently obvious, over and over again, that the welfare of servant and worker was right up near the top of the list of stuff considered extremely important by God.

onsdag, juli 14, 2010

I learned, with great shock, of the bomb blasts that went off at Kyadondo Rugby Club and Ethiopian Restaurant in Kabalagala, killing and injuring many innocent people who had converged to watch the World Cup Final on Sunday night.

As a result, there is a spirit of gloom and doom over the city of Kampala and the people of Uganda. Many people are bereaved; parents and children have been separated; brothers and sisters, lovers and friends are all feeling a great sense of loss and there is great pain.

This act of malice and hatred towards mankind is completely ungodly, especially towards innocent and unsuspecting persons. I condemn this act in the strongest terms possible and hope to see the perpetrators of this hideous crime brought to justice.

In the mean time, I call upon each one of us to desist from anger and revenge; this will only perpetuate the pain we already feel. Revenge is not a solution and neither is a sectarian approach to this problem helpful.

Let us instead now focus our energies on being a part of the fight against terrorism in our country. Each one of you can use your eyes as a great weapon to fight this evil. Even as we do so, let us not breed unnecessary suspicion against one another but instead seek for the common goal of a peaceful and just society. Remember a peaceful society is the right of every one regardless of their age, race, gender or religious inclination.

It may cost this nation a lot to try and be a good neighbour to the Somalis who are struggling to have a governable nation.

To the bereaved, I extend my sincere condolences. We share in your pain and wish you God’s comfort during this difficult time.

And to the entire nation, I ask you to fix your eyes on the cross of Jesus. The cross is a reminder of human cruelty to an innocent person; the agony of pain He went through enables Him to share in our pain as well. He had to pay a price for us to receive our freedom. The blood of the Ugandans spilled on Sunday will bring to Ugandans peace.

Perpetrators may not know what they are doing but Jesus prayed a powerful prayer, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Yet with this blood on their hands, the Righteous God will be the one to avenge our cause while human justice will also take its course.

For indeed our help comes from the Lord as Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

I pray for the President, his Cabinet, the Members of Parliament, the Police and all Security Agencies as they address this challenge. May God’s wisdom direct you and give you victory over the enemies of our people. And may Ugandans remain united during such a trying time.

The Peace of God be over this nation now and forever.For God and my country!

The Most Rev. Henry Luke OrombiArchbishop of the Church of Uganda and Bishop of Kampala Diocese

From the News Service of the Anglican Communion Official Web Site. (Click on the head line)

Remark: This is a good message, even excellent. But I find it the message of a Politician, not a Bishop.

lördag, juli 10, 2010

"God is the foundation, who gave us Reason before he gave us Scripture, and when the written word was shown to be plainly insufficient, gave us the living Word of his son Jesus Christ." Tobias S. Haller BSG

lördag, juli 03, 2010

Under the headline is an article in Religion Dispatches by Jay Michaelson of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the byn now habitual English language translation of toeva, Greek bdé-lygma, as abomination. He talks of it as an error in the KJV (1611/1783) but what he does not mention is that it comes from the great Scholastic changes perpetrated on the very reliable Old Latin translation (2nd century North Africa ff) in Paris by the pupils of Peter Lombard (+1162), the so called Versio vulgata parisiensis.

Incidentally, coitu (here rendered as "beddings") although well known from medical Macaroni, is a word that doesn't exist. It has been invented and put in the place of the Wife's Bed (the only bed there was in a Household in Antiquity) probably by the Versio vulgata people, to suggest sexual commerce. It is false.

The only current translation to retain the Bed is the 1956 Bible de Jéerusalem of the French Dominicans...

The obvious that 3 in a bed is one too many, was turned into the Socio-Political propaganda of the Scholastics. The aim was, of course, not to persecute the minority, but the Majority. Crowd control.

Koimäthäsä; lay, sleep even die, was turned into an abstract: commit, and gynäkeian; of wife into despective female/womanly - and, of course, toeva into devaluing abomination...

Dr Michaelson concludes "Personally, I like “taboo” as a replace-ment. It conveys the culturally relative nature of toevah, has some connotation of foreignness, and rightly aligns the taboo against homosexuality with taboos against, for example, eating unkosher food. It also has a vaguely archaic feel, which it should. Admittedly, “taboo” began as tabu, and specifically refers to a particular concept in Pacific indigenous religion; it is a bit inexact to import it to Judaism and Christianity. Yet the word has, by now, entered the common parlance, and in that general sense, it matches toevah fairly well. (Alternatively, we could stick with the Hebrew term, the foreignness of which heightens the foreignness of the biblical concerns about homosexuality.) One thing remains clear, though: what’s really abominable here is the word “abomi-nation” itself."

måndag, juni 28, 2010

"Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of HolyScripture, each extremely opposite unto the other and both repu-gnant to truth.

The schools of Rome teach Scripture to be so unsufficient, as if, except traditions were added, it did not contain all revealed andsupernatural truth, which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved.

Others justly condemning this opinion grow likewise into dange-rous extemity, as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kind necessary, "but all things simply", and in such sort that to do anything according to any other law were not only unne-cessary but even opposite unto salvation, unlawful and sinful.

...so we must likewise take great heed, lest in attributing unto Scripture more than it can have, the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverently esteemed."

onsdag, juni 09, 2010

A note on alias John 7:53 to 8:1, sometimes used as a proof text for “love the sinner, hate the sin”. This is n o t original to the gospel of John, as many take for granted.

Codex Bezae shows that it originally followed Luke 21:37, con-trasting Judas's treason toward his Master to the woman's different kind of faithlessness toward her, the Husbander/Pater familias.

The parallel stories about Abram and Sarah in Genesis 12:11ff, 20:2ff and Isaak and Rebekka in 26:7ff show, however, that the point was precisely the approval or not of the Pater familias.

Obviously, Jesus' attitude was too lax for the Philosophically minded and the story of the woman in the Temple yard was cut out around 200 AD (out of the Alexandrian redaction), and "re-stored" only in the 5th to 6th century Byzantine redaction, and then to three different places in the gospel of John 7:36, 7:53-8:11 and 21:25, which lacks the Matt 5 and 19 stories about 7th Commandment moixeia.

This sometimes proof text for “love the sinner, hate the sin” is thus rather instable, and as such, a proof of the continuous pro-grammatic manipulation for Ecclesiological and Socio Political purposes of the Sacred Text in European Neo Platonist Academia, since the Imperial Academia Palatina at Aachen/Aix la Chapelle 1200 years ago (continued by its successors at Fulda, Oxford and Sorbonne).

With this post I want to plug the work of my dear Blog friend Dr Mailthri Gonitelleke from Australia, who intermittentlly is a barefoot doc in Swaziland. Click on the Headline to see a video about his work!

Twenty nine years ago today, on June 5, 1981, the Center for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published a report of five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. All of the men were described as "homo-sexuals"; two had died.

And thusly were the first cases of what is now known as AIDS introduced to the world.

Twenty nine years ago the numbers of those infected were most likely small enough to have been brought under control had the situation been treated like any other health issue.

Twenty nine years later the numbers of those infected represent a world wide pandemic of disease that continues to claim life after life, particularly in the parts of our world where access to medicines and medical care is less than adequate. Control remains a distant and elusive goal.

To our eternal regret and damnation, this medical condition was not treated like any other health issue. Politics, prejudice, igno-rance, stigma, and moralization were allowed to seize control from science and medicine.

In the United States the first to be identified as infected repre-sented the "four H" club: homosexuals, hemophiliacs, hookers and Haitians. All were stigmatized. Even hemophiliacs who became in-fected through infected blood products were treated as pariahs. The stigma of AIDS persists to this day, affecting housing, employ-ment, access to medical care, and ordinary social interaction.

Ignorance about how the syndrome of disease was transmitted created an atmosphere of fear and distrust. When it is unclear how disease is passed among us, we react and overreact rather than seek to find the truth.

Politics immediately inserted an ugly twist to the situation. First the syndrome was named GRID, which stood for Gay Related Immune Deficiency. And with that naming an entire segment of the population was further stigmatized and essentially dismissed.

Never had a medical condition been so directly connected to a group of people rather than a medical cause.

Two presidential administrations allowed politics to govern everything from research to care rather than treat the situation as a medical situation desperate for a proper medical response rather than a political response. When a presidential adminis-tration did attempt to address the problem, efforts were ham-strung by the politics that controlled the Congressional branch of government.

It seems the only way politics lost sway over the situation was when things were truly out of control and had begun to threaten more than just those infected.

Stigma resulted in people being fired from jobs, being evicted from housing, being refused medical treatment (at one point even including services after death such as autopsies and embalmings), being ostracized from social groups and now keeping those who may be infected from even finding out that information for further fear of stigmatization by others who might subsequently learn of their status.

Prejudice already existed against those perceived as different from the majority. Add to that a medical condition that was mistakenly presumed to be associated with those same groups, and prejudice was multiplied. Gay men were already suspect to most of the population. Hookers were on the margins already as well. Haitians, being people of color, already knew aboutprejudice. Even hemophiliacs were often viewed a being flawed in some way because of their already existing medical condition.

When moralization gained a foothold in the mix, pretty much the ultimate confluence of negativity prevailed. Certain religious leaders were quick to claim God's judgment as the source of disease. Other religious leaders jumped on the existing bandwagon against gay men, prostitutes and anyoneelse who did not fit within the bounds of their particular definition of morality. Science and medical science were not immune to the moralization, nor were the sources of funds that might be used to address the health issue.

Moralization and stigma drove members of certain communities underground rather than be subjected to the pain inflicted upon them. Those who had acted in secret sought further secrecy for protection. Secrecy and seeking medical care are often self ex-cluding activities. Secrecy puts others, particularly women, at great risk of infection. Infection rates reflect that fact all too clearly.

Faith groups refused to offer some degree of stability to rela-tionships by dismissing rather than blessing them. Those same faith groups then condemned any who might seek relationships without their blessing and further condemned those who were not interested in being in a stable relationship. Refusing to provide a source of stability in relationships and subsequently condem-ning those same relationships enforces hypocrisy.

Some of us have been more intimately involved in this horrific sequence of events and history than others. Many of us have lost dozens if not hundreds of friends while we waited as cries for help and medical attention went unanswered. Some generations sur-vived decimation by the Vietnam War only to be further deci-mated by death from this disease. Those of us who managed to survive both now face the "normal" issues of aging and death....

I suppose the first were in training and preparation for our later lives.

To her great credit in understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Episcopal Church was among the leaders of faith groups first responding to AIDS. We remain committed even though we often mistakenly think that those living with HIV are no longer as pre- sent in our pews. Some have even fallen into the trap of belie-ving HIV/AIDS has "moved" to Africa, Asia and Central and South America. HIV/AIDS has become a world-wide pandemic, but it has NEVER left the United States. There are areas in Province IV, for example, with infection rates that rival sub-Saharan Africa.

So on this 29th anniversary of the announcement that AIDS had come to be among us, may we all pause in memory of those who have died, pause in thanksgiving for those who continue to live despite HIV, and pause to intercede for a vaccine and a cure to be found in at least some of our lifetimes.

Pinched from the House of Deputies/Bishops' List with kind permission of Bruce Garner, Exec Council.

A short remark: 29 years ago my Grandmother was dying with Hodgkin's Syndrome, which is similar (Lymphome) to some as-pects of AIDS and believed at the time to be perhaps connected. I remember talking about it to one of the first Medics in Gothen-burg who specialised in AIDS (he later died from it).

The link between Hemophilia, Haiti and AIDS is, of course, that in the 1970ies we bought blod from Haiti. Further, Immunity was believed to be constant over Time and across the Population!!! That we robbed the Earth's poorest people of their blod, obviou-sly didn't bother us.

måndag, februari 22, 2010

“This is the key to understanding the otherwise inexplicable accu-sations by the populist right that Barack Obama is a socialist or fascist or whatever, as well as fantasies about a global secular hu-manist conspiracy. We are dealing with a mythological mentality, based on simple and powerful archetypes.

Contemporary figures and current events are plugged into a framework that never changes. “King Charles (or King George) is threatening the rights of Englishmen” becomes “Barack Obama is promoting socialism” — or fascism, or monarchism, or daylight saving time.

As in other cases of mythological politics, like messianic Marx-ism, this kind of thinking is resistant to argument. If you disagree, then that simply proves that you are part of the conspiracy.

Inconvenient facts can be explained away by the true believers. It’s hard to come up with arguments that would persuade people who think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are totalitarians to change their mind.”

This is something I’ve written about in the past. It’s important to understand that the political “thinking” of the True Believers on the Right is a thick soup of myth, allegory, and archetype. Stuff like, you know, facts, are irrelevant to them.

Lind traces the major themes of rightie mythology back to 18th century Britain, but in some ways I think you have to go back even further. The ur-myth that under-girds all the other myths is the old Zoroastrian struggle between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. However, [with righties] “good” and “evil” are matters of intrinsic identity, not actions.

I remember Sunday School literature from the 1950s that showed images of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev standing with Satan, while Jesus bestrode the United States, his arms wrapped protec-tively around a couple of innocent white American children. Even many who aren’t old enough (or Bible Belt enough) to have seen images like that have been influenced by the mythology such images represented.

If one believes America the Pure and Righteous is protected by Jesus, and America’s enemies are minions of Satan, then a great many other assumptions flow from that. Among these is the belief that public display of religious totems like Ten Commandments monuments is essential to keeping America “strong,” e.g., armo-red against demon enemies.

It also explains why the Christian Right wants obeisance to Jesus to be made compulsory. For them, religion is not about personal devotion or worship; it’s war.

And you’re either with ‘em or agin’ ‘em.

Further, as I’ve said, “good” and “evil” are understood to be intrinsic qualities that reside in certain individuals and groups regardless of what they do. One chooses to take the side of “good” by being loyal to the “good” tribe, a.k.a., “us.”

An example of the importance of archetypes in rightie thought can be found in the blogosphere’s reaction to homicides allegedly (she hasn’t been tried yet) committed by Alabama University professor Amy Bishop. Like most leftie bloggers I haven’t written about Bishop because, to me, it’s a crime story, and I rarely comment on crime stories.

But a number of rightie bloggers have blown Bishop up into a Big Bleeping Political Deal, pointedly calling her a “leftist” or a “socia-list.” How so? Apparently someone called Bishop a “socialist” on her RateMyProfessors page, so it must be true. Also, she went to Harvard.

In other words, we in Rational World have no way to know any-thing about Bishop’s political beliefs, or even if she has any. Furt-her, there is nothing about the homicides that suggests a political motive, so a rational person wouldn’t think of the homicides in political terms. Some are claiming a racial motive, because the three individuals killed were non-white, but one of the people she shot who survived is very obviously white. Since these were people Bishop knew, it’s not unreasonable to assume her motives were personal.

But bloggers who have pointed out there is no obvious political component to the Bishop homicides, notably Steve M and Steven Taylor, have been subject to vile counter-attacks from the Right for suggesting the homicides were not political.

The weird truth is, I don’t think the rightie bloggers calling Bishop a “leftist” have said she had a political motive. So why are rightie bloggers making such a Big Bleeping Deal about her alleged poli-tics? Because it so neatly fits the mythological archetype of “left-ist” and “socialist” that lives in their heads, that’s why. As the “A-merican Power” blogger explained, “I have never hypothesized on Bishop’s motives. It’s enough fascination at the simple truth of a Harvard leftist in league with some of our worst criminal murderers and jihadi terrorists.”

Criminal murderers and jihadi terrorists? She went to Harvard. What more do you need to know? People who go to Harvard are like that. And there need be no political motives, or any motives at all, for a “leftist” to be a violent, murdering criminal, because that’s just the way “leftists” are. See how it works?

In fact, suggesting any motivation at all to Bishop, even an evil and irrational motive, seems to enrage some righties, who equate understanding motive with making excuses for the murders. Rational people don’t think that way, of course, but we’re not talking about rational people. We’re talking about people whose worldview is entirely shaped by myth and archetype, not by reason.

Which brings me to why Sarah Palin is a goddess. By that I don’t mean she has actual godlike powers. I’m talking about her role in the rightie mythological cosmos, and why pointing out her obvio-us shortcomings will put no dents in the tea partiers’ loyalty to her.

By “goddess” I mean a goddess in something like (but not exactly) the tantric sense, in which a deity becomes an archetype for one’s own deepest nature. Palin, by contrast, is a near-perfect embodi-ment of an ideal. She is (to a rightie) beautiful, sexual, and mater-nal; she is powerful enough that the Evil Ones who live in Washing-ton and who speak seditious things on the Teevee must kowtow to her. Through her folksy speech and shooting skills she evokes other American archetypes from more wholesome, earlier times, like Daniel Boone. But she also wears modern clothes and has a Facebook page.

Like most tantric deities, Palin has has both benevolent and wrathful aspects. As a wrathful goddess she gives voice to her followers’ deepest fears and hates and resentments. But she also has a bright smile and sometimes carries a baby, showing a benevolent side. Her followers both love her and identify with her; she is an archetype representing their own deepest selves, or at least the selves they’d like to be.

She’s a goddess, I tell you. And because she is a goddess is makes no difference to her devotees that she has few real accomplish-ments, no coherent ideas, and probably doesn’t know Bern from Budapest. It does not matter if she writes crib notes on her hand and needs several months to think of a name of a newspaper she actually reads. In fact, it does not matter to them if she reads at all. Whatever she does is exactly right, because it is her doing it, and she is a goddess.

It’s important to understand this, because it shows us why it’s futile to treat Palin as just another politician or media star. It was pointless to make fun of the crib notes, for example. I doubt any-one could bring Palin down but Palin herself. If she somehow grossly and blatantly violated the ideal she represents, her follo-wers could turn on her. But until she does that, she is invincible in the eyes of the devoted.

There’s a long analysis of the tea party movement in today’s New York Times that’s worth a read. Essentially, the “movement” is a collection of fearful people grasping at incoherent ideas the way drowning people grasp at lifebuoys. It brings to mind what Eric Hoffer wrote in The True Believer (pp. 59-60):

“The power of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice. … whether or not [organizations] develop into mass movements depends less on the doctrine they preach and the program they project than on the degree of their preoccupation with unity and the readiness for self-sacrifice. … Such diverse phenomena as a deprecation of the present, a facility for make-believe, a proneness to hate, a readi-ness to imitate, credulity, a readiness to attempt the impossible, and many others which crowd the minds of the intensely frustra-ted are, as we shall see, unifying agents and prompters of reckless-ness.”

Because the incoherent ideas the tea partiers grasp are plucked from the American psyche, those ideas can be traced back through earlier times in American history, as Lind says. But the ideas themselves are not the point, and so I disagree with Lind that understanding where ideas come from is key to understan-ding the tea party movement. What unifies the tea partiers is something primitive, pre-cognitive. As Hoffer says elsewhere in The True Believer, fearful people give up individual autonomy to become part of a movement, and within the movement they find the freedom to hate, bully, torment, and torture with impunity — and with the blessings of the goddess Sarah."

söndag, januari 24, 2010

The links between Dominionism and the proposed Ugandan Legislation are tight. The International (= American) Transfor-mation Network is one, if not the main sponsor together with The Family, a group of Dominionist members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives, who share digs in Washington, but are so far known mostly for their sexual scandals.

The point is to Christianize the Governments of the World through "Christian domination in business and the marketplace", even the "Unification of the marketplace and the pulpit”.

This, I remind you, is the Taliban of the western hemisphere. This is where the Supreme Court’s absurd decision to break with the established wisdom of the last century handing over American politics to lobbyists for big Corporations, makes sense.

The draconic Ugandan proposals are the testing ground. These days they are organising the PrayforNewark Project in Newark, New Jersey.

The United State’s Supreme Court has in a decision, referencing the 1st Amendment on Free Speech, let political campaign money free, also from “general funds” within 60 days of an election. This has been regulated since the Age of the Trusts, lately through the McCain/Feingold Campaign Finance Bill. Direct contribution to candidates as hitherto is not affected.

This is in reality a Coup d'Etat and the political landscape is expected to change from Oligarchy to Corporativism if this decision cannot be circumvented through legislation or yet another Amendment to the Constitution. A critical article on Citizen Link an outlet of Focus on the Family (!) is found under the Headline.

A worrying factor in the background is what is generally called Dominionism. The efforts, since a few decades back, by some Calvinist Sects to establish the OT laws of men as the law of the land, proscribing the Civil Rights of women, gays, and so on. More on that in the next post.

Remains to be seen if the Supreme Court in its decision has not overreached itself… Maybe Chief Justice Roberts is not quite as clever as he thinks.

I refer to what I wrote on the 30th of September 2005 after he was appointed:

The three part Separation of Powers (Europe traditionally has two since the 1st Millennium) of Mr le Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu gives the Judiciary great and increasing political clout, which – not surprisingly – is politicized in ways unthinkable to us. Local attorneys and judges are politically elected, and federal judges are nominated by the Executive (the President) and confirmed by the Legislative power (the US Senate).

Before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate Roberts – politely but firmly – declined to reveal how he views the Constitution versus Legislation and Civil Rights, or certain well known cases such as Roe versus Wade, and others. He only conceded that precedence is important and often binding, but he wouldn’t way how he would act as Chief Justice.

The latter is to no little degree quite right, because Roberts in reality has been a judge for less than 2 years ;=)

This makes Roberts an unknown entity. Nor has the Administra-tion released more than a fraction of the records the Judiciary Committee asked for from Roberts’ work for the Administration 20 years ago.

One has appointed a man of no properties. In any other system he would – as a matter of course – have been put on waiting for another 5 or 10 years…

Personally I am quite worried about this. Not only because of the choice of a perfectly un-known person to influence American Society (and by implication us all) for the next few decades, but also because of what I know about the English Law Lords.

The British equivalent to the Supreme Court is made up of a dozen Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, supplied by as many others who are no longer in Ordinary, but yet haven't attained the age of 75, or other jurists who have been elevated to the Peerage.

The Lords of Appeal are naturally among the Best, the highest Paid and the Brightest there are, but they are not men without properties.

No one becomes one of the Worlds best Jurists for being brilliant at judicial niceties.

In stead we find among the Lords of Appeal a strong devotion to the Law as such, to the Principles of the Rule by Law, and to Human Rights – precicely what Judge Roberts didn’t have anything to say about.

In the cases I know somewhat closer this comes out of deep personal experience. Several of the Lords of Appeal originate from South Africa and have been formed by their years under Apartheid before they moved to the “motherland” – as it still was those days – and could fulfil their dream to devote themselves to the Value and Rights of Human Beings.

In one case I know that this devotion goes back yet another generation – to that of my Grandparents – and an insight about the horrors of Nazism, in a life-long effort, all from the 1920-ies, in co-operation, also with good persons within the Church of Sweden, for Freedom and Democracy in Europe.

söndag, januari 17, 2010

I want to talk about Facebook. A while back I was befriended by a lady not of my usual acquaintances, who are generally Episcopali-an, Modern, pro Women, pro Gay and Liberal. I have noticed since that she has befriended several of my acquaintances but I still wonder what her intentions were. What she posts herself is the usual anti Obama propaganda of the Tea Baggers, the Birthers, and so on… Plus the occassional "devotional" which strikes me as just as politic as anything.

But I want to talk about a particular thread. I find it illustrative of the Animosity, Hate and Frustration, which have characterized American Politics lately.

I find this animosity most worrying for the well being and cohe-siveness of American Society – and so for all others (what hap-pens in the USA, happens here 10 years later). And I see it as a residue of both the Americas’ Colonial past.

In Massachusetts the Senate Seat held for many years by late Senator Ted Kennedy, the younger brother of murdered President John. F. K. and Senator Robert K, is up for grabs. The by-election campaign seems to get ruff. Some hope that if the contender Scott Brown (who first ran as Independent and now as Republican) wins the Seat, the Obama Administration’s policies will founder.

Certainly, there will not be the 60 Votes sometimes claimed necessary for (partial!) Health Reform and Economic Restoration.

The post which caused the thread was about the Democratic can-didate in the race, Martha Coakley, the present Attorney General of Massachusetts. It consisted of little more than a quote, or some-thing presented as a quote by Martha Coakley but had been trun-cated:

"Devout Catholics should not work in the emergency room” with the (wholly unrelated) addition: “This comment is STUNNING These left wingers are so damn arrogant, but I would love for her to say that Muslims should n...”

Further it promised a link to “full article” on something called The Conservative Monster, which lead to a further link called Big Government: What was found was:

BREAKING-Martha Coakley: Devout Catholics ‘Probably Shouldn’t Work in the Emergency Room’by Jim Hoft“You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

Democrat Martha Coakley was on with Ken Pittman from WBSM in Massachusetts today. Martha told Ken that if you object to abortion and are a devout Catholic then…“You probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

Upon which follows a Youtube with the radio interview in question and this transcript (note the misspellings!) from 1 minute in:

Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.Martha Coakley: No we have a seperation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.Martha Coakley: (……uh, eh…um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

So the full quote actually says: “The law says that people are allowed to have that; you can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn’t work in the Emergency Room.”

I cannot emphasize enough how worrying I find the present poli-tical climate in the USA! The Animosity, the Hate, the Frustration. Others may discuss the social and economical mechanisms, but I say this: Let there be no more political assassinations ever!

What follows is the Facebook thread from comments 51 to 95 (I wasn’t able to copy the first 50).

Nr 51.Coakley has the IQ of a flea.... Could you just see what would happen if Scott Brown said Muslims should not work in the ER..... Mainstream Media would have a freaking fit!!!

Nr 53.I am busy right now, has Fox reported this yet? They will drill this the next few days I hope

Nr 53.She sees us, like the rest of them see us. We are pawns, not people..

Nr 54.What does being a catholic have to do with working in the emergency room? Furthermore, if a woman is raped, THERE ISN'T a contraceptive that can be given to her for treating rape! Not one that we have here in the US anyway! What a moron! I hope MA conservatives come out and vote and make her lose by a landslide!

Nr 55.I think this dummy was trying to say "Planned Parenthood" because I am not aware of any abortion case in the emergency room.

Nr 53.Right, my ex worked in delivery, not emergency...

Nr 56.blah blah blah...she is the idiot feminatzy that we real women just loathe....

Nr 57.Actally Nick, every time a woman is raped an goes to the hospital they give her the morning after pill. If any pro life woman is in that horrible position, she has to be careful because they generally won't tell you what they are giving you unless you ask.

Nr 58.Martha Coakley, you are a freak!!! If I worked in an ER, I would even save YOUR SORRY ASS!!!

Nr 59.I still don't understand why she thinks other religious folks would be okay with it... ??????

Nr 60.As Forest Gump once said " Stupid is as stupid does"

Nr 61.So Jesus shouldn't have healed the lame and the blind and the spirit-possessed, and the haemorrhaging woman, and ESPECIALLY not the Official's daughter, the Widow's son and Lazarus, cause THAT was raising someone from the dead, without first having received extreme unction? It is a Christian's duty to give all the help they can to poor and the sick and the heartbroken and the marginalised! Is she the Pope? I'd like to hear HIS take on this!

Nr 62.Any Devout Christian should leave the ER as soon as they cart her in.....

Nr 63.OOUT!!!!

Nr 64.What the hell is wrong with this woman?

Nr 65.I hope this moronic broad continues to step in it. Between this and The Anointed One, The Deliverer Of Hope And Change, The Narcissistic Osama Hussein Obama coming to campaign for her, the seat that alcoholic Ted Kennedy occupied COULD be taken by a true conservative. Bye bye 60 votes for the 'health care' abortion!

Nr 66.What is happening to our country? How can we fix this divisive-ness? VOTE FOR SCOTT...let him be the 41st vote...and if they keep him from voting against it...illegalities can be argued...it adds strong creedence to the mounting illegalities...

Nr 67.What do you think that wacko Coakley will look like in ten years? Scary. What do you think that wacko Coakley will say to voters in Ten years? She won't have anything to offer except party-line politics. Phooey. Martha, go home and disappear.

Nr 68.Wow. Is that hate speech?

Nr 69.i'm sure this witch will get her due in the pit

Nr 70.I hope that woman doesn't get elected.

Nr 71.WE NEED A NEW WORD FOR ARROGANCE, BECAUSE THE OLD ONE DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE WITH THESE GUYS...PUTS A NEW MEANING INTO ABOVE AND BEYOND...

Nr 67.No need for a new word for arrogance. There are terms aplenty: Just some on the list include ignoble, out-of-touch, inept, boob (which means foolish), morally bankrupt, glad-handing, and liar. No respect for that politically-motivated dirtball who would rather damn the people than hold an honest town hall meeting.

Nr 61.I didn't know abortions were performed in the ER! The CHOICE TO ABORT A CHILD IS ELECTIVE SURGERY! In Australia, doctors can choose whether or not they perform them.

Nr 72.That was the most stupid unintelligent remark anyone could ever make sure hope the Ma people have enough faith not to vote for her. Remember Karma, Martha. what goe around comes around.....

Nr 73.She said this with BOSTON being so Catholic??? Doesn't she want to win?

Nr 72.Also it has nothing to do with seperation of chuch and state.It is about morals, faith and beliefs...not government. This is how the defend their conscience by saying seperation of church and state. How stupid do they think the American people are. We are much more intelligent that this group in congress/

Nr 67.It is possible that this endeared '' Freedom of Choice '' is not really about freedom at all? By that definition, a FORCED HELL-CARE mandate is NOT freedom of choice. Therefore, Reid can stick his hell-care bill up his sorry ass

Nr 67.For those who don't get it: Roe V. Wade is supposedly a '' freedom of choice '' issue. I never agreed with that, but if that is the way the court ruled, then let's apply that same decision about freedom of choice regarding health insurance. By that very definition of freedom of choice, congress cannot force their hell-care on anyone nor require anyone to buy something. After all, it is not a '' free choice '' (and ps, SCREW YOU NANCY PELOSI )

Nr 73.Hope Coakley doesn't run into a devout Republican in the ER.All kidding aside, though, if something like THAT were to ever happen, you can be damned sure it wouldn't be on the Republican side.

Nr 74.That is one of the sickest and most senseless remarks I've ever heard. Keep talking, honey, you're taking us straight to victory.

Nr 75.Get ready to see ACORN, SEIU, & BLACK PANTHERS at the voters box in Massachusetts. No telling what may happen!!

Nr 76.Lord, I hope she loses, she purposely got the Governor to against the parole board recommendation to commute the sentence of an innocent man, if she loses it will be as much for that as for being a Dem, she is a thoroughly despised woman in Massachusetts, not just by Republicans.

Nr 77.The so called "elite" are on a "power high", or they are just HIGH on mind altering drugs.....It blows me away!!!Maybe the Dems. and some Republicans should remember the words of ol' Abe.....In fact, I like it so much I am going to post it:"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." - ... Visa mer-- Abraham Lincoln

Nr 76.What an arrogant witch, no wonder she is so liked in Mass. NOT

Nr 67.Frankly, it should be that national guard is deployed to the polls just to make certain that those goods from acron, and seiu, and panthers are warned away. (By the way: None of those groups deserve capitalization)

Nr 53.Get ready for ACORN to recruit 30,000 Haitians for the revolution....

Nr 78.I'm really amazed at the devout Catholics who vote liberal! Here they are, professing their belief in Catholicism and yet voting for the party that supports unrestricted abotions!! I just don't get it!! One of my inlaws is Catholic and yet always votes democrat!!! How does that work anyway???

Nr 79.I hope you win! Mass needs you!!!

Nr 80.@Doug, I'm with you on that question. I read a post by a Catholic who wondered how any Catholic would be right-wing. Then she went on about JFK being Democrat. Most of us realize JFK would in all probability be anything but a socialist democrat of today.

Nr 81.It's great to see the people paying attention!

Nr 82.Wow. That's a lot of comments. I got nothing more to add. Ok. I do.... She also refused to prosecute a child sex offender as the DA. How does someone like this even move up in the ranks. Wake up MA!!! You can change the image of your state in one election. Next we need a Mitt/ huckabee ticket (in any order)!!!

Nr 81.That is exactly what our political system says is ok... If you or your family are politicaly connected then it's ok for you to do wrong. Ie: no paying taxes, sexualy abusing women, disregarding the constitution, etc. It is because we became complacent that we find our country in this position today!We, The American People, have to be relentless in... Visa mer our personal fight against the same type of tyrany we fought so hard to seperate ourselves from during the FIRST American revolution. This my friends, should be the start of the second. This election in Mass. on Tue. will let us know if people are waking up!

Nr 83.Right on Nr 3. Haitians will be coming here!!!

Nr 53.People of MASS? Get your act together, because YOUR votes has ruined this country. Kerry and Kennedy? ENOUGH SAID...

Your's truly ;=)Context, context." Text without context is pretext."

Nr 84.what a horses ass.

Nr 85.Hey, Martha, I got one for ya..."Devout Socialists should not work in government!"

Nr 86.It's time lying politicans bite their lips, and maybe the venomthey have been spitting out will make them so sick, they will just become weak and will fall from power...We can hopecan't we?????

And this is only 36 out of 96…

Another Post from the same lady: Poster through PP:Obama, Dems cut deal to exempt union health care from taxes Washington Examiner www.washingtonexaminer.comThe White House has agreed to concessions in its health care legislation aimed at sparing union workers the bulk of a new tax. We have seen tremendous progress over the last couple of days,